"the famous “Sugar Bear Hamilton roughing the passer” game"

Only in New England. For those of us who live in Flyover Country, please elaborate.

Interesting analysis.

Also supports those of us who pushed back against the FO-led madness declaring the Pats "the greatest team of all time" and suggested some other teams worthy of being included in that debate, including the '85 Bears and '91 Skins.

when they said "best team of all time" their actual statement is "best team of all DVOA time".

And Pythagrian analysis isnt as good for football because since it is time based, teams who are ahead will be willing to reduce their overall points scored (and increase the other team's overall points scored) in order to run the time out. And the patriots blowing teams like the dolphins out of the water raises their pythagrian stats without actually increasing their skill.

If the giants had the toughest schedule to win the superbowl its for one reason and one reason only. They beat the Patriots. If we look at the actual skill of the teams they faced, the best WR of the cowboys AND TB were injured (and Brady injured maybe?). TB isnt all that great, Packers are good, but most likely not above the average skill of a #2 team, and Cowboys are probably below the average #1 team with TO injured. This means the ONLY team they played that was above the average of their number is the patriots, who were way better than a normal #1 team. But of course you would need to be a #3-6 team to play 4 teams, so that narrows it down right there.

Odd that Dallas' weakest Super Bowl winner had the easiest ride.

It would be interesting to see the same chart drawn up for Super Bowl losers

#1
The 13-1 Raiders were hosting the 11-3 Patriots. The Raiders only loss that year came in NE, 48-17. Until this year, many people felt this was the best Patriots team ever. With under a minute left, the Raiders faced 3rd and, I believe, 18 from about the Patriots 28. On the play Stabler was pressured and threw wildly incomplete. It looked like 4th and ballgame, but Hamilton was flagged for roughing the passer. Given the times and the way the game had been called in general, it was an awful i.e., ticky tack, call. He was hit as he was releasing the ball. Needless to say, it was a game changer. Given a 1st down at the 13, the Raiders scored a TD with 10 seconds left and won the game. Bad feelings between the team, its fans and Ben Dreith the referee still persist. Dreith even weighed in after the tuck rule game saying he thought it was a fumble. It was rumored that the League kept Dreith away from the Patriots for five years. This game happened in the era before ESPN and message boards, so few people outside of New England and Oakland are aware of its controversy, though Raider fans seem to have selective memories. Raider fans seem convinced there is a League conspiracy against them. Not in '76.

what's this business with "an historical?" I thought Stuart was the resident Brit?

#8

We are taking over our favourite site old boy. Spiffing, what?

Anybody else love a team labelled LARD above? Man, that is sweet. If not for Al Davis, Homer Simpson and I would be all over that LARD action. (Plus we know Homer is anti-Broncos and pro-lard already)

Okay, the USAToday take on this is that "nobody should ever win the SB" because the odds are against it. Except in 2 cases.

Clearly a mis-reading of the data. But does it strike anybody else as odd that the odds are so long for everyone? I mean... SOMEBODY HAS TO win the damn thing, every year, it's guaranteed and protected by Congress.

I guess the best way to explain it in layman's terms--and please let me know if this makes sense-- is that you might have 12 teams divvying up the odds, it's almost impossible for one to have 50% or greater, meaning the rest of the pack of 11 divides up the remaining 50%--rarely will you get a team that has an 11:1 advantage. If they were all exactly even it's 8.5% chance for each.

So then we have 12 teams and the team with the BEST shot has maybe a 20% chance, which is still huge, since the average of the other 11 teams is 7%, giving the favorite a 3:1 edge over the average opponent.... and in reality, it is more likely to be a 20% team, a 12% team, a couple at 10%, and then a bunch below 6%, and maybe a couple super-long-shots, right?

#1, #7
Drieth tacked on another half-the-distance-to-the-goal by flagging Hamilton for unsportmanlike conduct, which set the Raiders up inside the 7...

This was the first of three consecutive frustrating years of near-misses for the Patriots...1977 was even worse than 1976...In Week 13 (second to the last week) the Colts threw their game against the Lions on the game's final play by creating a botched punted their own end-zone with Detroit falling on it for the win...This because MINUTES earlier, the Patriots had beaten the Dolphins --- meaning (because of tie-breakers) that if the Colts beat the Lions, then the Patriots and Colts would play for the AFC East title, with the Dolphins eliminated...Instead, with the news of the Patriots win, the Colts threw the game...This meant that if the Dolphins beat the lowly Bills on Saturday of Week 14 (in which they were heavy favorites and in fact did), then the Patriots would be eliminated on the spot, meaning their Sunday game against the Colts was meaningless (if the Colts won, they got in, if not Miami, Oakland had already clinched the WC) --- talk about the need for ESPN!!!...I asked Greg Landry about this a few years ago --- he of the Lions then and later the Colts --- and his faced just dropped (like, "how the hell do you remember that?")...Well, Patriot fans remember it...

Minnesota Vikings Number 1 Pythagorean team of all time.

Any article that lists the Minnesota Vikings at being the number 1 team of all time in any stat is OK by my books.

> Well, Patriot fans remember it

As a Colts backer, I remember it too, and the circumstances were indeed somewhat fishy. What doesn't make complete sense though is that the Colts still needed to beat the Patriots in the final game of the season, and you'd think that the Patriots would have had every bit the incentive to beat the hell out of the Colts if they felt they'd just been cheated. They didn't. The 1977 Patriots team just wasn't that great, and never completely recovered from the early-season holdouts of John Hannah and Leon Gray. The 1976 and 1978 teams were better; the '76 team being undone by Dreith and the '78 squad ultimately by the philosophical and financial differences between Chuck Fairbanks and Billy Sullivan.

4 - The open disdain for the readership continues to disappoint. There have been a lot of fingers pointed at "negative" commenters and so forth for inciting problems, but all I see here is #2 getting jumped with an undeserved sarcasm attack for making a comment. I don't get it. In my view, it's also a disingenuous attack, but that's beside the point.

#4 - Ummmm...Did you really counteract #2's argument with a quote where 'FO' claims that they were the best team ever at the middle of a season? Isn't that what #2 is saying? I agree it's maybe somewhat reckless to label the 'best-ever' hype purely as an 'FO-led' phenomenon, but your argument is a bit revisionist, no?

This is Aaron's quote, in the Conference Championship Audibles thread, which caused me to dispute his view of this year's Pats.....

"Although the Patriots struggled in this game, the way they won demonstrated why they are the best offense of all-time and probably the best team of all time."

It was obvious to me by then that they simply weren't crushing opponents at the end of the season, and particularly in the playoffs, in the manner that some other previous Super Bowl champions had (the '85 Bears and and '89 49ers were the ones that stuck in my memory) so I found it very doubtful that they were the best team of all time, by the way I define it, which is the team which best eliminated bad luck or randomness as an impediment to winning the Super Bowl.
Mind you I did not predict the Giants to win, although I did say that taking the Giants and the points was the best wager available.

Looking at this chart, the '85 Bears and the '89 49ers did not have historically tough playoff opponents, although the '89 49ers' were more middling than on the historically weak end of things, so at this juncture I would give the nod to the 17-2 49ers of '89, who had all three of their playoff opponents totally blown out by halftime. I'd like to see these "typical" Super Bowl champ rankings for the wild card Super Bowl champs after their intial playoff opponent is eliminated from the calculations.

Kudos also to the '78 Steelers, who although they did not crush their Super Bowl opponent, they did soundly beat a recent Super Bowl champ which was loaded with Hall of Famers.

Of course, yes, this is a terrific article.

Not another one of those irrational Steve Grogan vs. Bert Jones threads...

I'm surprised that the 2006 Colts number is 2nd at 1.3%. I must have a short memory. Without the numbers above in front of me, I'd have figured them for better odds than that.

#14

1. Well, it eliminated the Patriots, which was frustrating...

2. The Colts opted to throw the game, so they must have thought it was in their own interest to play an eliminated-though-furious team (running out of the end zone for a safety would have preserved the win)...

3. Yes, the Patriots were furious and wanted to beat the hell out of Colts...And they actually built up what I believe was a 24-7 lead in the second half --- then that ill-advised safety blitz (Clayborn?) with the Colts backed up inside their own 3 and things just unraveled from there (all those PI penalties).

4. Brilliant move by Marchibroda though...What quick thinking...

Re #1:

Even though it happened (slightly) before I was born, that game was, in part, the root of my dislike of the Raiders. I grew up watching football with my dad (as I'm sure many people did), a lifelong Patriots fan. And he HATED the Raiders, and Ken Stabler, and Al Davis, and everything connected with the franchise, partly because of that game (and partly because, for years, both before I was watching football and throughout the '80s, the Raiders were easily the dirtiest team in football). It rubbed off on me, and the uncalled roughing the passer penalty that launched the "Snow Bowl" controversy and the tuck rule discussion, and all the Raiders' whining about conspiracies, and Al Davis's lawsuits, only fanned the flames. Now I live in the Oakland area, and my barber cuts the hair of the Raiders coaching staff. Funny how life works out...

Has a study ever been done comparing the actual playoff fortunes of great regular-season teams with the championship odds formulated by Pythagorean/log5 (or DVOA for that matter)? I ask because the odds calculated for this article as well as FO's normal DVOA-based playoff odds are well out of line with those posted in Vegas (even accounting for Vegas's typical shorting of prop odds), and perhaps reality.

In other words, is it possible that Pythagorean doesn't properly account for the best teams bringing their A-games to the table once they reach the playoffs, even further exceeding their performance over the long haul of the regular season? It just seems to me that most of the historically dominant regular-season teams (post-merger) have actually gone on to win the Super Bowl. Some of this is probably post facto perception, but I'm not sure completely so.

Obviously the Patriots-Giants result would represent a data point in favor of this analysis, relatively speaking (the Patriots were a ridiculous 2-5 to win the Super Bowl in Vegas before the playoffs started, but only about 50% here).

> Yes, the Patriots were furious and wanted to beat the hell out of Colts

This was also the game where the official incorrectly ruled Bert Jones as down by contact with the ground before he fumbled on a sack play, which wasn't even close to the case and effectively cost the Patriots that final game of the season, in addition to any previous indignity. Yeah, the Colts were lucky as hell to make the playoffs that season, before being undone by the "Ghost to the Post" in what is still one of the greatest games I've ever seen played.

As for the Colts-Lions game, maybe the Colts threw the game and maybe they just screwed up in punt blocking. They probably did lie down, but I remember being pissed just the same because I didn't see any logic in trying to finish 10-4 instead of 11-3, and having to do so against an irate Patriots' squad (which didn't lie down anyway, as you point out). It just didn't make any sense to me.

Re: #19

You've gotta remember that the Colts defense was atrocious in the regular season--the chart, I believe, doesn't take into account "they got a lot better".

Good article.

It seems to me, though, it should be ranked by the "typical" SB team odds of winning rather than that particular team if we are discussing which set of games was actually the most difficult overall.

It looks to me that the 1976 Raiders had the toughest road in the playoffs.

"There are plenty of factors that could throw this number off — injuries, home-field advantage, strength of schedule, overall league strength, etc. — but it should be fairly accurate for most teams." Regarding Home Field Advantage, is this statement saying that HFA isn't included at all, or that team-by-team HFA differences aren't incorporated. My reason for asking is that some of the very dominant teams of the last 40+ years had HFA - my guess is that this would increase the odds of winning the SB by about 5%.

However, it would probably only bring the 75 Steelers and 91 Redskins up to the 50% threshold. Which ironicly only further proves Vince's point and illustrates how tough it is to win it all even when a team is "destined" to do it.

Which of course was already mentioned in the article.

#1

The Hamilton call was tough for Pats fans - so much so that even years later they accuse the Raiders' fans for "whining" while they themselves whine about being beaten - beaten - by the Raiders way back in '76. I remember the game and it was a tough break for the Pats. Was it a ticky tack call? Probably. Still, it happened and you lost.

As a Raiders fan I also remember a fair number of blown/questionable calls against the Raiders during that era which outnumber the touchy roughing call: The legality of the Immaculate Reception is debatable, the Rob Lytle fumble in Denver in '77 is not... The tuck rule debacle more than made up for Sugan Bear. The Pats have had plenty of good fortune in their current run - the mugging of the Colts receivers in the AFC playoffs a few years back stands out like a sore thumb. It happens to every team at some point when they are good for a while - luck goes for and against.

Implying that the Raiders' fans "whining" was unjustified while people here whine about Sugar Bear's blow to the head is patently hypocritical.

25 (steelberger): I also prefer that the list be ordered by the odds for a typical winner.
However, that raises two points:
1. Instead of using .750 as the Pythagorean winning percentage, maybe use the mean or median (or a column for both) of all Super Bowl winners.
2. It also skews in favor of teams that had to play 4 games to win the Super Bowl, which could be problematic, seeing as the "typical" winner is a #1 or #2 seed and will only need 3 wins.
But overall, I loved this article. It's writing like this that makes FO my favorite site.

As a reference point, I count 12 Super Bowl champions with a Pythagorean rating over .800. How many playoff losers have been over the .800 number in the Super Bowl era? This article references the 1968 Colts, the 1969 Vikings (up against the .842 Chiefs-- one of the two teams had to lose; so that one is a wash), the 1976 Steelers and the 2007 Patriots, obviously. How many others?

Again, perhaps due to regular-season Pythagorean being somewhat understated for great teams and perhaps due to other factors, the championship odds seem quite a bit too low in many cases, certainly versus so-called conventional wisdom. Quite a bit of that might be due to the known imperfections such as not accounting for HFA, strength of schedule, etc. I just know that I'd love to have gotten down on some of these odds-- the aforementioned 75-1 on the 2006 Colts being one such glaring example (for some well-understood reasons; I'm not disputing that). But no, I still wouldn't have touched the 2007 Giants...

> The legality of the Immaculate Reception is debatable

Really only if you believe that the laws of physics are debatable-- that ball flew 10 yards backwards, and I don't believe that Frenchy Fuqua had that kind of spring in his fingertips. To this day I derive great enjoyment whenever I hear John Madden whine about this admittedly lucky play; he's an intelligent and sensible man on most other matters but on this one he still hasn't come to grips with physical reality.

I don't think the victory against Tampa is really supporting evidence for a great playoff run. The Bucs were ripe for the pickin'.

11: you incorrectly implied that each of the 12 teams would have an equal chance of winning if they were equally matched. This is incorrect.

essentially 3-6 are playing one play in game to get into an 8 team tournament, meaning the 1 and 2 teams have a 1 in 8 chance, and the 3-6 teams have a 1 in 16 chance. if a team has a 75% chance of winning each individual game, and they had a bye in the first round, their chance of going all the way would be about 42%. I think it would be relatively rare for a team to have a higher than 75% chance of beating the playoff teams they play against (maybe one, but then you would assume the opposing superbowl team and the divisional championship games would be against more formidable opponents).

Thanks, Tom, I forgot about the extra game/bye week thingy. 8 of the 12 teams, even if they are all evenly matched, have an extra game, an extra 50/50 shot further reducing their odds. (conversely, I could give all the bye teams a 100% chance to win their first week)

Glad I asked; glad you answered.

I imagine the Colts' pythagorean numbers (last year and in the past) are dragged down by Dungy's unwillingness to unnecessarily run up scores...which also boosts the Patriots a good deal.

This is a cool article. I hope someday we have DVOA going back this far, so we a better measuring system. It blows me away that 2 were over 50% to win the Superbowl that means they had about an 80% chance to win each of their games.

#22, I would also like to see a little study about the post season success of great regular season teams.

For instance, what would each of the Super Bowl matchups look like if the top Pythag team from each conference had made the game. Also, how about if the #1 seeds made the Super Bowl every year.

The NFL is littered with seemingly great teams that fell short (07 Patriots, 98 Vikings, 90 49ers, 76 Steelers, etc.)

What franchise "should" have the most Super Bowl appearances and titles?

37: The Arizona Cardinals. Every year they're picked as the "sleeper" Super Bowl team.

Silly thought but should the analysis look at more than a 1 year snap shot of the teams in question. Case in point the 1984 49ners team took out the Bears and Giants to the tune of 44-10 on the way to the Super Bowl. These teams would win the next two Super Bowls. I like the ranking based on typical team rather than the actual team. Either way good stuff:)

Stupid thought, but how bout the Superbowl losers too. Just to see who was the unluckiest?

I remember the '76 game Pats-Raiders quite well. The fact that it is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Bucky Dent or Buckner just goes to show how little attention the media or most fans paid to the Patriots back then. To my mind that is still the most crushing loss the Patriots have ever endured - far worse than this year really, since the '76 Pats didn't lose, they were simply robbed. And the loss was especially heartbreaking because that Patriots team was really probably better than the '07 team at every position other than QB and WR. And that loss played havoc with the franchise for years afterward -everything bad, the Fairbanks departure, the Gray-Hannah hold out, even Stingley getting laid out by Tatum, all had their roots in that game.

RE: 35 Matt

I'm a Colt's fan, but the low pythagorean score for the 07 Colts is not based on Dungy's lack of running up the score, but is based on the Colt's horrible run defense during the regular season. I want to say that one of their games set a record for fewest number of possessions. I'm guessing that the 03 Colts had a much better pythagorean score than the 07 Colts.

I assume you're talking about the 2006 Colts. No, they weren't a great team, but they were the #3 seed in the superior conference and had an off-year in large part due to injuries which had been mitigated somewhat by the end of the season. They'd also already beaten the Patriots in the regular season (in New England), and as such in the AFCCG they were only 3-point underdogs at home. There are so many factors involved with playoff football, but there's no way the 2006 Colts were a 75-1 shot entering the postseason; they were widely viewed as a contender, not a favorite and a bit of a sleeper, but certainly viable.

Re #21. "Funny how life works out"

Boy is that the truth. I came to dislike the Cowboys under somewhat similar circumstances (not being dirty, but winning a game they shouldn't have because of officiating). I was a Vikings fan, and they lost on the hail Mary play where an official with a perfect view of the play didn't call Preston Pearson for OPI, giving the Cowboys a last second win in a game they had no business winning. And I wound up living in Dallas during the 90's. (at least I didn't have a barber who cut the Cowboys' hair).

What's funny is that this isn't the fault of the Cowboys, of course. It would be more rational for me to hate the refs. But somehow the poor Cowboys become the victims of my ill feelings.

Agree about the open disdain for the readership. It used to be we are all equals here discussing. Now, if you're text is in colors, you are more equal than everyone else.

You're supposed to be above the fray if you really believe you are superior to us.

Yes, the Indy run defense was awful, but it usually was. However, that was a team which routinely seemed to beat its pythagorean score in real wins and losses, if I recall correctly.

To Vince: Since the comparisons were thrown around a few times, can you do scores for the 2003 Panthers just to see where they would have ended up?

To be clear, I wasn't actually accusing Raiders fans of whining...I was accusing the Raiders organization itself of whining. It's weird...usually, an organization is above reproach and it's fans tend to be obnoxious. But in the case of the Raiders, it may be the opposite. I actually have never personally encountered truly obnoxious Raiders fans (although I have yet to watch a game from the Black Hole)--passionate, yes, but not especially whiny or obnoxious. But the Raiders organization itself, starting with Al Davis trying to sue the city of Oakland becauese he can't sell tickets, and continuing on with the stories of the Raiders sending the NFL a picture of the Tuck play every year to cover their complaints about officiating, has always irritated me.

#4 - well, others have beaten me to it. But color me unimpressed with a quote from "Gelf Magazine." And also with any response that starts with "Really?" Such rapier rhetorical wit! And such a great discussion starter to boot!

(Aside: what the heck is Gelf Magazine? According to wikipedia, here's what a GELF is: G.E.L.F. is a term designating any type of Genetically Engineered LifeForm in the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf.).

First, I will concede that "FO-led charge" is both unfair and inflammatory. I apologize.

However, FO did nothing to stand in the way of the stampede of crappy, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, sports-radio-like conventional wisdom, and FO might not have led the charge but FO certainly jumped on the hyperbole bandwagon.

You want to see FO complicity? (and, yes, I hold FO to a higher standard than the rest of the sportswriting crap because FO is founded on Bill James-type skeptical empiricism. You want to be the Bill Jameses of Football? Then toughen up.)

MDS on 11/23/07: I believe the 2007 Patriots are the greatest football team ever assembled.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2007/11/23/fo-goes-mainstream/5797/

Schatz in the conf champ audibles: probably the best team of all time

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2008/01/21/ramblings/audibles/6044/

And just to kick you in the shorts, Bill James wouldn't be caught dead publishing unsubstantiated hyperbole such as Schatz's the 2007 Patriots have the greatest offense in NFL history.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2008/01/21/ramblings/audibles/6044/

(Have you adjusted for rules changes that don't allow DBs to touch receivers?)

And while I appreciate some posters "defending me" and though I do not feel particularly "attacked," I do think some of your editorial choices will not age well. Chief among them to create a post called Irrational Spygate Argument Thread.

Let's dissect that for second. There's the lame attempt at a joke I see, playing on FO's history with Irrational Manning vs. Brady threads. Do you even remember why you named those threads Irrational? It's because rational folks see that both Manning and Brady are all-time greats.

What's "irrational" about wanting to discuss the confirmed and alleged rule breaking by the Pats?

BTW, back to the "greatest team ever" stuff, I would point to Sean McCormick as the one FO regular who bothered to voice his skepticism, and quite articulately at that.

Wow, the 76 Pats-Raiders game. I remember watching it on TV as we put up the Christmas tree. Both teams were very good those years but had the bad luck to play at the sametime as those great Steelers teams. I still remember the man-crush Howard Cosell had on Russ Francis, the Patriots "All-World" tight-end.

I seem to recall an interview or something where Hamilton claims he tipped the pass and in that situation the QB was fair game and that's why he hit Stabler.

What’s “irrational” about wanting to discuss the confirmed and alleged rule breaking by the Pats?

Because, Carlos, that discussion typically doesn't really have anything to do with football, it's usually (see Gregg Easterbrook) either whipped up hysteria used as an excuse to attack the Patriots, their coach, their owners, their fans, their fans' second cousins, etc. Or it's crazed Pats fans claiming that they weren't cheating, everyone does it, etc. It's really not that complicated - the Pats cheated, they got caught, they got penalized. If you think the penalty was too light/too harsh - write a letter to the Commmissioner. There's not much more you can add to the discussion at this point other than unfounded innuendo and accusations. If you show up with a signed affidavit from that Walsh guy maybe they'll open a rational thread for you.

I think you guys (FO) would be remiss if you tried to create a complete analysis of the Giants' postseason foes if you didn't include the trends that they were following.

Let's start with Tampa Bay: the Bucs were highly inconsistent during the first nine weeks, then like any other inconsistent team they would peak and valley. They peaked in week 11, hit a valley in week 14. Then they peaked again in week 15 before....you got it! Bottoming out against the Giants in week 18. It was very unlikely that Tampa Bay would have won that game.

Next: Dallas. The Cowboys bottomed out in week 17 against Washington, a game in which they rested their starters. They were on a negative trend all year long and when they let themselves go in the final week of the regular season, it was no surprise that they couldn't beat the Giants.

Next: Green Bay. The Packers were consistent for the first nine weeks of the year. Then they went nuts. They went from blowout to being blown out and back and forth the whole rest of the year. After blowing out Seattle the week before, they were lucky to lose by 3 against New York.

The last game of the year is the one game that New York should have lost. Granted, the Patriots were falling behind and winning by smaller margins, but that was a game that the Patriots should have won. New York either won with an incredible effort or the game was rigged.

New York's path through the playoffs was not as difficult as FO would make it seem. Each NFC team they played was, as #32 said well, ripe for the picking. During all of this, as the media pointed out well, the Giants were gaining momentum. Momentum is a much bigger factor in NFL football than most people realize.

You'll all have to take my word for this because FO doesn't like it when I post my web site in these threads. Leave it to them to stifle the discussion.

Carlos, I imagine the Spygate thread is called "irrational" because some people (on both sides) just can't discuss it without completely losing their shit. Read it yourself if you don't believe me (better yet, for your own good, don't. Just trust me on this one).

As for the whole "it's hyperbolic to call the Patriots the best ever and FO should be above it" stuff, well I disagree to a point. I do think the Patriots are the greatest regular season team ever and are almost certainly the best team to not win the Super Bowl. Given how hard it is to win the Superbowl as this article points out, I don't hold it against them too much. Losing probably drops them behind a few teams, but I think they're still in the discussion.

As for the "greatest offense ever" stuff, well I don't see whats so wrong about that. Yeah, they're playing in an offense friendly era, but every other offense gets to play by the same rules and the Patriots were still streets ahead of any other offense this year. The only offense I can find even close to these Pats in the DVOA era is the 2004 Colts who played by the same rules and played most of their games indoors to boot.

#51, I never knew that "win 2, lose 1" was a predictable trend.

#52 - it's not just about wins and losses. I guess I should have clarified that. Look at a team's biggest lead, biggest deficit, and final margin of victory or loss and you'll see what I mean about momentum. Win two, lose one doesn't tell you much but a big win by 20, followed by a close win where you trail by 10, followed by a loss where you never lead does tell you something.

Carlos, as vanya points out the Spygate thread is called "irrational" because some people, on both sides, just can't talk about it without losing all sense of perspective. Read it yourself if you don't believe me. Or, for your own good, don't read it and just take my word for it.

As for the whole "it was ridiculous hyperbole to call the Patriots the best ever" stuff, well I don't agree with you. Their season DVOA was over 50%. The only two teams since 1996 even over 40% are the 96 Packers and 99 Rams. No, they didn't win the Superbowl, but this article does a pretty damn good job illustrating just how hard that is for even the greatest teams. I'd say the loss stops them from being the best ever but I think they're still in the discussion at least. The same is true for the "greatest offense ever" stuff. Only the 2004 Colts are even near them in the DVOA era. Yeah, they're playing in an offense friendly era, but every other team gets to play by the same rules and the Pats were miles ahead.

And finally as to your "Bill James wouldn't be caught dead saying that" throwaway line, Bill James never had a website he updated daily. I'm pretty sure that if he had, he'd have thrown in some outlandish comments every now and then in the heat of the moment.

ok, what's going on here? I made a comment, came back 15 minutes later and it was gone, so I redid my comment and now the original is back again.

Vince,

Nice piece. A couple of thoughts:

- Home field matters. You can find an approximate value by looking at the home team's record in games where each team's probability is 50%.

- If you want to do more work, you can use the probabilities from each game to generate each team's pre-playoffs probability of winning the Super Bowl in any given year.

As for the whole “it was ridiculous hyperbole to call the Patriots the best ever” stuff, well I don’t agree with you.

This is really the lowest form of argument. The quotation marks are there to make a reader believe I wrote what appears quoted.

I never wrote that.

If you care to take on what I actually wrote, then we can have an actual discussion.

If you prefer to use made-up quotes, well, then, I leave you to turn this into a foxsports.com website.

Because, Carlos, that discussion typically doesn’t really have anything to do with football,

Who cares about what's "typical?" Anyone who bothers to read this site and spend money buying the book is yearning for something better than typical! If you name a thread "Irrational," then you're inviting that kind of commentary.

> Yes, the Indy run defense was awful, but it usually was. However, that was a team which routinely seemed to beat its pythagorean score in real wins and losses, if I recall correctly.

Well, yeah, Pythagorean had the 2006 Colts winning 9.6 games (at the listed .600 Pythag WPct), when they actually won 12. Furthermore, going back to the FO archives, while the Colts were 9th in the league in Pythagorean wins, they were 7th in DVOA and 4th in weighted DVOA, with no truly dominant teams in the league. As such in their actual playoff games, the Colts were big favorites against KC, small underdogs against BAL and NE, and fairly sizable favorites against CHI, regardless of the fact that those last three opponents bettered them in regular-season Pythagorean. I'd say given that list of opponents (and not having to play the #1 seed SD, consistent with this analysis) the Colts' more realistic odds of winning the Super Bowl were 15-1 or less (closer to the straight-up one-sixteenth chance of winning four straight games against evenly matched opponents).

I think the 2006 Colts probably represent the worst-case error in a Pythagorean projection of the Super Bowl winner, and they're probably not even in the top 10 unlikeliest champions (but that's alright, Pythagorean projection is known to be a simple first-cut measure of team strength, again, without considering strength of schedule, HFA in the playoffs, variance in regular-season game scores, etc.).

Can someone explain this colts throwing a game against the lions to me? I don't know too much about this (well, actually nothing but what has been posted here so far) as it occurred a bit before my time, but for those that believe the game was thrown, what exactly was the motivation? I can sort of see a team wanting to throw a game if their play off seeding is fairly well locked up, and they can influence what team the play (presumably, they would do this to play a team they feel they have a better chance of beating). But if I understand it correctly, the colts hadn't clinched a playoff spot yet. Obviously, I must be missing something here, but I don't know what that is.

Carlos #58, what exactly am I supposed to make of this?
"However, FO did nothing to stand in the way of the stampede of crappy, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, sports-radio-like conventional wisdom, and FO might not have led the charge but FO certainly jumped on the hyperbole bandwagon." followed by: "Bill James wouldn’t be caught dead publishing unsubstantiated hyperbole such as Schatz’s the 2007 Patriots have the greatest offense in NFL history." If you are not trying to say that Aaron and others here were guilty of engaging in unsubstantiated hype of the 2007 Patriots, please enlighten me as to the real meaning of these comments and I will apologise for misunderstanding you and taking your comments out of context. All I did was take a quick look at how the 2007 Patriots stack up against other teams in the DVOA era and conclude that they were indeed a historically great team.

"Who cares about what’s “typical?” Anyone who bothers to read this site and spend money buying the book is yearning for something better than typical! If you name a thread “Irrational,” then you’re inviting that kind of commentary." I have absolutely no idea how this refutes the points vanya or myself made as to why the Spygate thread is labelled "irrational". Oh well, back to foxsports.com for me.

> But if I understand it correctly, the colts hadn’t clinched a playoff spot yet. Obviously, I must be missing something here, but I don’t know what that is.

The game was 100% meaningless to the Colts (by the end of the game)-- winning didn't clinch anything, affect seeding or HFA in the playoffs, nothing. The Colts had to win the following weekend against the Patriots regardless, and the theory on the motivation to lose their game with the Lions was that they'd rather play a Patriots team with nothing but pride at stake, rather than go head-to-head for the division title (which didn't make complete sense to me, but...)

I'll admit that allowing a jailbreak punt block while holding the lead with a minute to play is highly suspicious (then again, the 1993 Steelers pulled off the same feat in their playoff game in Kansas City, and I'm going to assume that was unintentional as much as I'd like to believe the game was fixed). I've linked to a good article on the 1977 AFC East battle in which the author states the Patriots had "seen the Colts purposely lose an easy winnable game at home to help them win the division and knock the Patriots out of the playoffs". That was the prevailing opinion in New England if not everywhere else.

Carlos,

I am not sure why you are so concerned with them separating that thread from the rest of the discussions? I have been reading this site for a long time (though I only started actually posting somewhat recently), and one of the worst trends was how sometimes, discussion of the Pats and to a lesser extent the Colts could completely take over a thread, even when the thread had nothing to do with either of those teams. Personally, I was glad they separated it. I get enough of the Pats as it is without having to see thread after thread devolve into a discussion on the Pats here. As for calling it irrational, I am guessing that was probably a reference to the last time they had to do this, when they called it the irrational Tom Brady vs Peyton Manning discussion, or something like that.

62:

Thanks for the explanation and the link. That makes a little bit of sense, I guess. It still seems rather dubious to me though. I mean, the Colts threw the game against the Lions, so that the Pats would be eliminated and have no motivation to play. But the very act of throwing the game would, in and of itself, give them motivation to play!

It sounds to me like sour grapes; the Pats didn't get the job done in the regular season and were looking for someone to blame, other then themselves.

Though as I said, it was before my time, so what do I know. Anyways, thanks again for the information.

This probably isn't the place, but seriously what more can be said about spygate that is not pure conjecture? Did filming really provide the Patriots a meaningful advantage? We don't have any evidence either way. Was significant evidenc destroyed? We don't know. So Carlos, what rational avenue of investigation do you feel has been left unexplored?

Vince, thanks for the breakdown of playoff losers with .800+ Pythagorean winning percentages. Maybe .800 isn't a good cutoff standard for a "dominant team" because such teams are fairly commonplace (more than I had thought), and especially in the early Super Bowl seasons there were multiple .800+ teams per season (maybe in part due to the totally disparate NFL-AFL schedules). It might be more interesting to note that there have been 8 championship teams at .850+, but only 4 losers above that mark. I think you have it right with your conclusion of "the odds of dominant teams are probably too low in this study, while the odds of lower seeded teams are probably too high".

re: 64

Vince, Green Bay's win over Seattle did NOT give them momentum. A sudden surge in one direction (blowout win or blowout loss) typically leads to a regression to the mean. That's exactly what we saw when Green Bay lost to New York by 3.

So no, momentum doesn't work for "some teams". Momentum is gained through gradual rising and falling, not through sudden surges.

I'm going to link the column I wrote through my name, and NO this isn't an advertisement, this is me giving readers the ability to actually see what I'm talking about.

The discussion became irrational when the subject arose in threads that had nothing to do with the Patriots, Giants, Rams or Jets.

Fair enough.

If Green Bay had just blown out Seattle, shouldn’t they have had more momentum than New York, which had just squeaked by Dallas? Or does momentum only work for some teams?

No, squeaking by Dallas proved to the Giants that they had guts, could win the tough ones, and gave them a scrappy mentality and the confidence that propelled them to victory against both the Packers and the Patriots.

Unfortunately for the Pats, their close wins were really signs of their impending doom (actually, that parts probably true). Likewise, winning 18 games in a row does not provide them momentum, but means that they're due for a loss. I <3 sports cliches.

Re: 51

Momentum is important? How important? Is it more important than swagger? What about heart? What happens when a team with better momentum runs into a team which wants it more?

Good thing for the Giants they were gaining momentum while the Patriots were spinning their wheels as they won 18 games in a row.

I didn't realize how important momentum is. Thank you. I only wish the FO fascists would let you link to your blog so I could read it.

(And before you get all huffy, please understand that my tongue is in my cheek.)

Re: 68

OK, seriously I have read your article and I have a question. Doesn't high variance go both ways? If the Giants' opponents are likely to play badly because of their recent wild swings, aren't they equally likely to play very well against the Giants?

Basically what I'm saying is that your argument should not be that the Giants did not face good opponents, but rather that the Giants faced opponents who might have played very well or very badly and the Giants luckily caught them during a bad phase. But don't tell me it was predictable.

Re: the 07 Pats as "Greatest of All Time" - It's funny that there's suddenly this major backlash against the idea (even directed at FO's writers -- who I believe were as fair and balanced as possible throughout the season)... because if Eli Manning and David Tyree don't combine for one of the most miraculous plays in NFL history, you'd have to dig pretty deep to make an effective argument against their GOAT-ship. They'd be assumed the GOAT until proven otherwise, and Pyth alone doesn't really hold a lot of weight in the court of NFL consensus.

I guess my convoluted point is that one really amazing, 1-in-a-million play separated the Patties from being almost universally accepted as the GOAT. Yet, since Manning-to-Tyree did happen and NE did lose the SB, people are acting like they doubted the Pats all along. Don't lie, though -- had they won, you'd probably be calling them the GOAT. (At 19-0, you kinda have to, right?)

74:

I'm not sure what you mean. I recall number of posters who maintained all along that they felt other teams would still be the GOAT (the 85 Bears come to mind).

I think where some of the "backlash" might come from is from people who didn't really think that the Pats were the GOAT, but were willing to "give it" to them if they went 19-0, sort of in the same way that the 72 Dolphins are often included in the discussion, for no other reason then their record. Now that the Pats didn't go undefeated, they no longer get that artificial boost, and so we can evaluate them a bit more objectively I think.

My position on this (and yes, I stated it prior to the SB), has been that while it can be fun to talk about, there really isn't an answer to the question of who is the greatest of all time. We obviously can't go back in time to play historic games; even if we could, we would need to play them quite a bit to to get a reasonable estimate (as you pointed out, one individual game isn't really a good indication). It is simply impossible to compare teams from separate eras as well. I mean, say you were to compare the 2007 Pats to the team that did go undefeated, it is easy to say the Pats are the better team, but then, what rules are we playing by? 2007 rules, or 1972 rules?

Found something else the 07 Patriots couldn't do that the 72 Dolphins did: score 14 pts and win the big game.

Teams that score 14 or less in the SB are 1-20. The only team that won were those 72 Dolphins, 14-7 over Washington. And any historian knows it was 14-7 instead of 17-0 (just like their record) because of that stupid botched FG play with Yepremian being returned for a late TD.

Re #43/#59

2006 Indy was -3 over the Pats. Using offshore closing odds & historical win rates at those odds Indy should win the Superbowl 11% of the time. The 2007 Giants should win 0.33% of the time, the Pats 78.64% of the time. However, all the home lines & Superbowl favorites are inflated, thus the true odds of the Pats are likely much lower than 78% while the Giants odds are much higher. Using start of the playoffs offshore odds to determine who should win is worthless because the built-in vig is greater than 20% as books do not give you the option of playing the Titans will not win it all (as you briefly stated).

Going into the Superbowl a better prediction method uses playoff only statistics.

Re #76 - last week, one Wash Post writer (George Solomon) was blaming the WAS loss to MIA on Kilmer hitting the goal post (then located at the goalline) with a pass, implying a much closer game than a 17-0 or 14-0 (assuming Garo just fell on the ball rather than throwing the pass).

I'm glad to see the '69 Chiefs did in fact have one of the toughest roads to a SB championship as I argued in the thread that spawned this article - 6.3% chance for a typical champion w/o factoring in two road games.

Pyth doesn't account for teams resting their starters after clinching the playoffs. This in part contributed to the '67 Packers seemingly low Pyth numbers as they didn't have to win their last two games (and also got HFA in the playoffs). I'm sure this is true in several other cases, I just have been going on about that team lately and how W-L r